Giorgia Meloni accused Russia of orchestrating illegal migration into Europe to destabilise the bloc as she called for stronger defence of the bloc’s eastern and southern flanks.

“We have to understand the threat is much wider than we imagine,” the Italian prime minister said on Sunday, during a North-South security summit between leaders of Italy, Greece, Sweden and Finland.

“We want to defend external borders and we don’t want to allow Russia or criminal organisations to undermine our security,” added Ms Meloni, a hard-Right politician who leads a conservative government coalition.

Some EU members, including Finland and Estonia, have previously accused Russia of allowing illegal migrants from the Middle East and elsewhere to enter the EU via Russia without proper checks. Russia is also said to use proxies in Africa to encourage migration into Europe across the Mediterranean.

Moscow has denied deliberately pushing migrants into the EU to undermine security.

Finland has an 830-mile land border with Russia to patrol, while Italy and Greece face threats at sea.

“What we understood in this meeting is our borders are very different, so they need different tools. What happens here in Finland, where a fence is useful, cannot be done in the Mediterranean,” Ms Meloni said at the summit in Lapland.